Powerful PLCs, secure drives and an HMI panel from Siemens are the secret ingredients of the P3000, SMO’s semi-automatic skewering machine.
Eeklo-based SMO developed a semi-automatic machine that allows food producers to roll up to 3,000 satays per hour off the conveyor belt. A nicely effective skewer of Siemens PLCs and drives, seasoned with an HMI panel in clean design, makes the P3000 stand out.
SMO develops and builds machinery for various sectors, such as automotive, agriculture and horticulture. But the Eeklo-based company is particularly strong in the food industry, including its machines in the Pintro franchise.
The start of the Pintro story dates back to 2007. “A local butcher wanted to make skewers more efficiently without losing its artisanal feel,” says Pieter Weyens, who is the commercial manager for the Pintro franchise at SMO. “He came to us with his basic design and we developed a small machine that butchers can easily put on the table in their back room.”
“Soon we attracted the interest of industrial players, who saw a future in an automated version of the machine to produce meat on sticks on a larger scale. This was a challenge we were up for with our long experience as mechanical engineers. We first developed the P1000 and now there is also the P3000. Of the P1000 - which can make 1000 skewers per hour - we produced almost 30 units, with the P3000 - good for 3000 skewers per hour - we clocked up one test machine and two units sold for now.”
“The P1000 and the P3000 are semi-automatic. That is, there are still people at the machine during production. We also have a fully automatic skewering machine with the Pick & Skewer, but with the P3000 you can pick and place twice as many skewers. So you still need manpower, but since skewers are a seasonal product, that higher capacity is often decisive in our customers’ choice. With the P3000, they can produce at the assembly line during the peak season."
Skewers are a seasonal product. The high capacity of the P3000 is therefore decisive in our customers’ choice. This allows them to produce at the assembly line during the peak season.
Ever since the inception of the Pintro division - some 15 years ago - Siemens has been a regular partner of SMO. “For the PLCs in the machines, Siemens was our first and only choice from the start,” says Ben Devos, who is PLC programmer at SMO. “First we worked with LOGO! but we quickly switched to SIMATIC S7-1200 and now we work with SIMATIC S7-1500.”
“You can safely call the PLCs in the SIMATIC S7-1500 series our advanced controllers,” says Wout Foqué, Customer Solution Architect at Siemens. “They have higher performance thanks to their more powerful CPU, but are still quite compact. This is a huge advantage for machine builders, as they often have limitations in terms of cabinet space.”
“We also chose SINAMICS G120 drives from Siemens,” Ben adds, “partly because they have a built-in Safety Limited Speed function to ensure safety. The P3000 also has an HMI touchscreen with IP69K from Siemens. IP69K is the highest protection rating for dust and water resistance. With machinery in the food industry, everything has to be clean design.”
“Our touchscreens with IP69K are designed specifically for the food industry,” Wout clarifies. “For example, the rounded corners prevent bacteria formation and you can clean the screen under high temperature and pressure without damaging it.”
The PLCs in the SIMATIC S7-1500 series have higher performance thanks to their more powerful CPU, but are still quite compact. This is a huge advantage for machine builders.
Ben has been working with TIA Openness for several years to program and configure machines. “If you work on machines with a large number of components and sequences, you soon start copy-pasting the code. Mistakes inevitably creep in there and it takes you a long time to rectify them.”
“With TIA Openness, you make fewer mistakes and lose less time,” Ben continues. “You start with a machine description: how are the sequences connected, what are the components, etc. The software notifies you if something is wrong in your build. That’s how you avoid mistakes. If you don’t get any more notifications, you can generate your data and function blocks.”
“Those standardised blocks are building blocks that you can very easily work with in a modular way later on,” Wout explains. “If you have that basis in place, then afterwards you can work a lot more efficiently when, for example, you reorder your machine or develop the next model. TIA Openness also gives you as a machine builder more scope for custom-made work. You have your standard blocks and you put an extra layer on top according to your customer’s needs.”
“For example, for our P3000, TIA Openness allows me to easily generate alerts in different languages,” says Ben. “I simply make copies of the code - one per language - and import them into the HMI interface, where they are translated. Some customers want to see immediately in the HMI alerts which component is faulty. This in turn can be done by adding a reference in the alert referring to the machine diagram. And if you change something in the programming via TIA Openness, you can rest assured that all other info will remain correct. That was not the case before.”
If you are programming large machines, you will soon start copy-pasting. Mistakes inevitably creep in there and it takes you a long time to correct them. With TIA Openness, that’s a thing of the past.
Thanks to TIA Openness and Siemens’ more powerful CPUs, SMO has skewered its recipe for success. “With feedback from Westvlees, which bought the first P3000, we further perfected the machine,” says Pieter. “For example, we have sold to our second customer, a Spanish manufacturer, a ‘P3000 2.0’ with even faster speed and greater ease of use. We also implemented the modifications in that second machine in the P3000 at Westvlees.”
Ben: “Thanks to the user-friendly and multilingual HMI touchscreen, the P3000 is also dummy-proof: as an operator, you can work with it very quickly, and changing recipes is also easy thanks to the support with pictures we provide via the screen. We are really near the limit with the P3000 now, especially in terms of hardware. We can make the motors spin even faster, but then the loading boxes will behave strangely. The machine does what it is supposed to do, our customers are very satisfied.”
